Identify what is most important )0( Eliminate everything else
The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world. Dr. Paul Farmer
The suffering of others is not alleviated when no one knows about it.
There is no one right way to live. Daniel Quinn Ishmael
The only thing that you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right sort of people.
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. Kurt Vonnegut

Monday, July 7, 2014

Healthier eating - Day 1

In order to be healthier and not die in my sleep, I am taking the advice of a whole bunch of people who should know what the heck they are doing.

I am mostly vegetarian, even more mostly vegan, but when I am feeling particularly crappy I try to wedge some flesh into my diet.  Carbohydrates do not have to be wedged, as they fit quite nicely into what I like to eat and what my budget allows.  When I do buy meat, it is from the two discount markets, and, truth be told, the quality is sort of O.K. at one of them and sort of hit and miss at the other.

The short story is that I will be eating:
  • Just a bit more of the usual 10-12 cups of dark, leafy greens that I eat most days, well, at least four days.
  • All of the vegetables I like, which is pretty much all of them, although I am eliminating a few for the next month or so, and will see how I feel when I re-introduce them.  Gradually.  Those vegetables are, in no particular order, corn, beets, carrots, although maybe not the carrots.  Still to decide.
  • Those bags of ready-to-eat salads.  I am thinking that they will be an easy thing to grab when I am craving a baked potato or toast or a sandwich.  I am having one right now.  Yum.
  • Fruits of all kinds.  I bought and had some today.  Kind of surprising, since I do not eat much fruit, just the occasional apple or banana.  Frozen berries, melon in season.  Stuff like that.
  • Meat.  Flesh.  I was just reading something and realized that I can have all the organ meats I like, which I like very much.  I like all kinds of offal, especially in soup, tripe, tendon, hearts, tongue, gizzards, thymus, liver, liver, liver.  I can also continue to eat fried pig skin from the grocery store that has all that nice Hispanic cuisine.  Allrighty then, this meat thing could work out, not only can I see myself eating all of that goodness, but it is all on the less-expensive spectrum, at least where meat prices are concerned.
  • Fats.  This is going to be a challenge, I think.  I already use butter instead of any substitutes, believing that they are poison.  Really.  Kind of. But, I may have to use more than I am used to, well, maybe not, because one of the foods I used to eat butter on is popcorn...breads, too, and since I will not be eating any of that, the extra that I will most likely have on the extra vegetables should be somewhat the same amount.  I think.  I am also going to use full-fat salad dressings, both home made and purchased.  I bought two bottle of the Brianna vinaigrette this afternoon.  It is the one with the artichoke on the label and I like it because it tastes great and has very few ingredients.
  • Um, eggs and seeds (which includes a few nuts, as well).  Eggs to not agree with my digestion, so I am going to very slowly add them to what I eat.  I am thinking that half of a hard cooked egg could be chopped on top of a salad, along with some raw sesame or sunflower seeds.  I can carry almonds, walnuts or macadamia nuts along with me.  Most nuts, just not peanuts, which I will miss only because I like natural peanut butter.  Oh, well.
  • I can still eat chocolate, as I eat 90-100 percent chocolate anyway.  No probs.  
  • Same thing for some adult beverages, which is nice in case I decide to have one sometime.  
The even shorter story is the kinds of foods I will not be eating:
  • Organic
  • Grass-fed
  • Seriously?  Only rich people can afford that stuff, and the same goes for the farmers' markets here in the summer and fall.  Whilst I like the idea of people growing/raising/crafting healthy foods and I honor the insane amount of work that goes into doing that, the totally appropriate prices are out of my budget and comfort zone.  They just are.
So, what did I eat on this first day of trying to become healthier.

BREAKFAST
I slept in and traded breakfast for an extra hour of sleep.  So, no breakfast.

LUNCH
I had 45 minutes between group and art class, so I walked to the next block for a salad and stopped instead at the place owned by that really cute Balkan couple, what they call themselves, Balkan, the cute, really cute part is all mine.

They really are adorable and when I walked inside there was no one there.  Business is bad everywhere in this town, except for the bars, clubs, fancy-panties-rich-folk restaurants and the drug dealers.  So, instead of just talking to them, I ordered some food.  They make nearly everything from scratch, so you cannot go in there and walk out with your food in less than a half hour.  Wife and I had a nice conversation.  She was eating yogurt and we talked about how we each make yogurt and it is the same.  She told me that sometimes she thins the yogurt with a wee bit of water and adds chunks of bread to it and that it is delicious.  Oh, were I still eating dairy, I would totally try that.  Someone else needs to do that and let me know what it is like.

I ordered home made beef sausage cooked with onions and green peppers, and a small salad.  The salad had crumbly cheese on it, which I did not order, but ate anyway because he forgot to give me lemon for the dressing.  He also made hash browns, which I started to eat before I remembered that they are made from potatoes.  Everything was greasy enough to make anyone happy.  I did not eat the little tub of mayonaise (what was that for?  a substitute for the lemons?), the rest of the potatoes or the little bun.

The meat and vegetables and grease were satisfying, as I suspect that meat is going to continue to be, taking so long to digest and all that.

DINNER
Fruit and the salad I just ate.  I am hungry, but it is for carbohydrates specifically, so I am ignoring my rumbly tummy and going to bed in a few minutes.

First day over easily, as I was busy doing lots of meetings (and the art class, which was so much fun) without any real slow-down time.  Tomorrow I have no place to be, except the laundromat.  Should be interesting, since I usually grab drive-through-fast-food to eat there.  I forgot to plan for that.  Phtttstp.

If I can do one day, then I can do the next day.  After that day, I can do a couple more.

1 comment:

  1. J, just do it day by day just like the exercise. Do a little more each day as in perhaps more steps or some light exercise. Little by little...that's what I try to do seeing as I am such a young chick! :-)

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